Human Development
Virtuous action
Description:
By acting virtuously, the individual actualizes his or her own potential for wisdom. This very act brings pleasure, explained at the physical level by a stimulation of endorphin secretion in the brain. Thus virtue can truly said to be its own reward, as the individual experiences heightened awareness and joy. It has been hypothesized that this reaction argues that it is natural to behave in a good or moral manner. However, since pleasure can also arise from actions which cannot be referred to as "good" on any commonly accepted moral scale, the good and the pleasant cannot be equated (indeed, the Upanishads clearly state that, of the ways of human life, the good is one the pleasant another). There is a clear distinction to be drawn from the joy experienced through virtue and the pleasure experienced through self gratification, whatever the physical response in the brain.